So I thought I'd apologize the next morning, but everyone is disappearing like smoke onto the morning air. Half the group is gone by the time I wake up, and the others are the strategists and then Arazel and Indy, who are accompanied by Blossom. She trembles as I approach her, bend down past her ears until we're at face level, and ask plainly, "Where are they going, Blossom?"
Blossom trembles even harder. "They didn't tell you about the mission."

I lower my ears as far as they can go, until the muscles begin to strain. "There's a mission?"

"Y-ye-e-ess?" Blossom chokes out. "A large one, over to Sukoma."

"On paw?" I ask. My mind guides me to Sukoma. Not far away, city by the sea, home to a few memories but not many. The Auspicia eyes it with a kind of playful disdain. I remember meetings spent lying with my head slumped against a desk of glass, praying for things to be over quickly.

"Sukoma's one of the best fortified cities in all of Opphemria. There's a barrier underground preventing teleportation in, known as the Teeth. It also prevents all kinds of magic, so it actually nullifies a lot of Plague victims. The city spent most of their resources on it, and given the scarcity of supplies, now, it would be impossible for anyone to build a second. P-plus, there are rich mineral deposits on the ocean. They practically just had to move things around."

"You sound like Rain." I say, with a wave of my tail, which Blossom eyes like it has teeth.

I am not winning this one.

"Are they gone?"

"Yes." Blossom admits, slumping forwards. "Sorry, Rena."

"What? You don't have to be sorry for anything." I say.

"Sorry."

I walk around her, exhaling, and stomp downstairs. Arazel is waiting for me, and her metal wings are spread wide over the button you mash to get the door open. She shakes her head. "Not this time."

"But Gale's with them--" I begin. "He's--"

"He's what?"

I lower my head. "I'll be back upstairs."

Arazel lowers a wing gracefully. "I'm sure we can find some way to keep you occupied if you're bored." She calls after me up the stairs.

"That will be especially not necessary." I return, stomping off to the center room.

Indy is fidgeting with furnishings, putting in boughs of colorful leaves for harvest season, and I catch him stick his entire face in the leaves. He draws it up when he sees me, ears flopping. "Not allowed out?" he asks.

"How'd you guess?" I say.

He tilts his head. "Well, they told me to watch you, but they have Arazel out in front there for a reason. I've proven that I--" He coughs, and I'm unsure if it's the leaves or a deliberate action, "Can't exactly be trusted not to let you do whatever you want."

"Oh."

"Yeah." Indy's face breaks into a goofy smile.

"Where are they actually going?" I ask, sternly, with another voice at the edge of mine.
"Sukoma." he says. "Keep your voice down. Walls have ears, Rena."

I look around at the walls, which look the same as they did yesterday, sans any fur or the delicate pink of the inner ear. "No they don't."

Indy exhales. "Alright. Figures of speech aside, it's a meeting about you, actually, and they really don't want you to know about it."

"Oh." I say again. My eyes are on the walls, looking at all the spaces where the decorations were during the Dog Days, now marked by snowy absence. I find myself wishing the room was any color besides white, since combined with the lighting, it looks like we are inside of the sun. "I thought they trusted me."

"They do," insists Indy. "As much as they can."

"That's a tired excuse," I sigh.

"It is." he agrees. "But I don't know if they were totally serious about it."

"Why?" I ask.

"For one thing, they left me here with you."
Our eyes rise to meet each other and he manages a tentative smile, his tail waving.

"You wouldn't." I start.

Indy nods. "I might. You know, by accident."

"You would accidentally let me out." I say.

Indy's eyes bug out a little.

"You would accidentally let me out?" I repeat, dropping my voice to a whisper.

Indy nods. "I know where they are."

"Oh." I say. I close my eyes, trying, ridiculous as this sounds, to get feedback from the Auspicias. I can sense them stirring in the back of my mind, their mind a mess of unsolved connections, but I remember this is my mind together and try to condense their mists together. Slowly, the old witches formulate something akin to a plan, all of them nodding in unison. "Indy," I ask, "Do you really think this would even be worth it?"

"You'd be in a lot of trouble."

I nod, raising a paw to pace the room, and lean into every step. The weight of the decision is a mantle set squarely upon my shoulders, but the house is so empty right now, and I can imagine myself going with it. Furthermore, I need to know more about myself, and that is what is being denied me right now. My own past and future.

Do we belong to you, Rena?

I'm a stowaway in all of this. No, worse-- I'm a vessel, like the travelling bags jostling around on their backs. There was no reason for them to ask me if I wanted to be part of this if I had no agency to begin with.

"They were trying to protect you." Indy says.

"Everyone's trying to protect me."

Indy tilts his head, incredulous. "If you die, the whole world goes down with you. You realize that, don't you?"

"Then why are you doing this for me?" I ask, only remembering halfway through to drop my voice.

"Because that's not fair." Indy says. "They're asking you to die, Rena. You've already died sixty-two times for the sake of this world. You should get to decide, at some point."
"The world is ending."

"Sorry to break it to you, but the world is always ending." His eyes dance with light. I wish I could be so brave. He pulls open a portal, a great darkness coalescing into being in the corner of the room, and he jerks his head in that direction, waiting. "Whatever you want."

I nod, staring at the hole before me, and hear pawsteps on the stairs, accompanied by the furious clicking of a mechanical heart. It's more fear than any legitimate compulsion that draws me forwards, into the darkness, but deep in my heart I find that I remember that too. What was so important, all those years ago, that drove me into this darkness so many times? I can only remember going forwards, and forwards, and forwards...

The woods emerge around me, the pitch trunks of limber trees extending into a canopy overhead, and though my group is nowhere to be seen, I can scent them around every corner. In the distance, hidden by the background noise of insects buzzing, I can hear the muffled sounds of voice. I rush after them, keeping to the shadows, and my fur is torn by thick foliage. The forest is unyielding and angry, and brambles are everywhere. The only safe space is forest cleared by the others, and when I get close enough to hear pawsteps, I draw back to the trees.

They continue for a ways, and the woods grow slowly less menacing. Brambles give way to lighter scrub, whose leaves are not turning as much as the brilliant forest overhead, but yet they still seem to be fading out, in a sense. When I press close to them I can sense the harvest sickness that will soon compel them to shed all of their leaves. I stick far back as possible, often getting lost in the embrace of a friendly plant or memory, but I could follow their scent for miles if need be. What's important is that I stay out of earshot, since--

"Did you hear something in the woods?" asks Fyera.

My stealth is atrocious.

"We can send out a patrol." Avery says. Her voice is sterner still than usual--as much of a feat as that is-- and the world stills around her. I resist the urge to give myself up at once, and try to press my legs against each other so they stop shaking. "Gale, Nina? Why don't you go do a quick sweep of our flanks?"

"No problem," Gale barks back, and my breath catches. The woods rustle, as if to proclaim go to him, and I shake my head. I hear a dull noise out to the right, far from the position I've taken (directly behind the group at large), and then the trees swallow them and their conversation altogether.

The woods begin to tremble again, and I push myself far as I can directly into a bush, relishing in its protection. It is a holly, and it tears at my wings, but it is a monster of a plant and can just barely fit me underneath if I hollow out the dirt around the surface. Save for the bed of nasty leaves I am lying on, which bite at my skin, I am safe and well guarded.

You'll have to reveal yourself eventually.

I lower my head, aggravated, and my eye darts upwards like that of a prey, seeking both the comfort of the sky and the two voices emerging from the brush.

"Sorry about that," Gale mutters. "With all the--" His voice is cut out, obscured by a violent twitching of the undergrowth, "It's nice to have someone--"

"I have you," Nina promises, her voice a silky whisper raised to a hiss, which I can feel vibrating in my body. "There's nothing to worry about."

"I know." Gale says. His voice is so warm. It blossoms open and I feel myself twist into a new shape, my wings like glass, like the vestigial limbs going skywards from the back of the Plague victim yesterday. I could grab onto the whole world and drag it down, right now. I rise slowly from the bush, shaking off the holly.

They stare blankly ahead, as if unsure of what they're seeing. Nina steps closer to Gale, tails flared up with confusion and muzzle twisted with disgust.

"I wanted to be part of this." I say, "So I threw off my guards and portalled myself here. I demand that you bring me along, else I'll be forced to loose the entire wrath of the Auspicia on you."

Gale surveys me with his mouth agape, something between excitement and confusion playing at his face. Finally, with full conviction, he announces, "You're an idiot."